


A different kettle of fish

by Ginny_Potter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (A little) Smut, Angst, First War with Voldemort, Fluff, M/M, Marauders' Era, Remus Lupin Never Went to Hogwarts, Remus' POV, What if?, partially canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 15:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginny_Potter/pseuds/Ginny_Potter
Summary: Remus Lupin has always lived in a houseboat, since he was a little child. When he arrives in London for a job, he meets a mysterious stranger. Because sometimes you cannot escape fate.“It’s Sirius, by the way.”Remus started and their eyes met again. The boy – Sirius – was sporting a defiant expression, as if he was expecting him to say something about his odd name. But Remus knew everything about odd names too. He lifted the corner of his mouth.“Like the star,” he said.A mischievous light coloured the grey eyes of the stranger and Remus felt as though he had passed a test.“I’m Remus,”Sirius smirked.“Like the near-miss king,”





	A different kettle of fish

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> Okay the prompt for this fanfiction does not make any sense. I was on a boat on the Regent's canal a couple weeks ago and I saw houseboats and I thought: Remus should live in a houseboat. And I pretty much started writing without having a clue on where I was going.  
> That's it.  
> Sooo, I really hope you will like it!  
> I am not a native speaker, so please point out mistakes so I can do better next time.  
> All the love.

“So, you live here,”

Remus raised his gaze from the rope in his hands. He was fastening it to the dock with a complicated knot. A young man, probably not much older than himself, was leaning against the wall in front of him, a leg propped up, his heavy boot pressing against the brownish bricks. He had a cigarette between his lips and another behind an ear, half covered by jet black locks.

“I do,” Remus tied the knot with expertise, without even looking at it, his wary eyes focussed on the man – _boy_.

“I saw you yesterday, upper on the canal, near Saint John’s Wood,” he went on, grey eyes moving franticly.

Remus nodded carefully; he wasn’t sure what the stranger wanted from him. “I had just arrived in London,” he answered, weighing up his words. It was the truth. “I stopped at the first spot, near the power station,”

The boy looked thoughtful, then crouched and sit on the edge of the dock, booted feet brushing the gunwale. He offered Remus the cigarette that had been nestling behind his ear. Remus tried not to look surprised when he recognised it from its oval shape: it was a Passing Cloud. Fucking expensive shit. He fought against his eyebrows raising. The boy – man, whatever he was – didn’t look wealthy on a first glance. His black trousers, though skilfully ironed to sport a straight crease in the exact middle, were faded, like… second-hand faded. And Remus knew all about second-hand faded clothes. His leather jacket had clearly been treated as to appear worn, and the Muggle band t-shirt underneath it had too many evenly shaped holes for them to be accidental. Remus tried to hide his chuckle: everything about his features, even the way he bore himself, screamed aristocracy. And there was the matter of Saint John’s Wood.

“What?” asked the boy, frowning.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Thanks,” he added, then realised he couldn’t light the cigarette with a snap of his fingers, like he usually did. “Do you have a lighter?”

The frown on the boy’s forehead deepened, he looked confused. Was it possible that he was…? But in the blink of an eye he was fumbling with his pockets and a second after he was handing him a bright orange zippo with a particularly satisfied expression. Remus lighted his fag and breathed in a mouthful of smoke. Oh, it was good tobacco. And this lad was clearly some posh rebel-phase runaway.

They smoked quietly for a while. Remus was still quite confused on the dynamics of what was happening. Why was this boy sharing expensive cigarettes and doing small talk with him?

“It’s Sirius, by the way.”

Remus started and their eyes met again. The boy – Sirius – was sporting a defiant expression, as if he was expecting him to say something about his odd name. But Remus knew everything about odd names too. He lifted the corner of his mouth.

“Like the star,” he said.

A mischievous light coloured the grey eyes of the stranger and Remus felt as though he had passed a test.

 “I’m Remus,”

Sirius smirked.

“Like the near-miss king,”

 

*

 

For as long as he could remember, Remus had always lived on water. He couldn’t recall a time in his life in which he had slept on the mainland for more than a couple nights and even then, it had been a weird and unnatural experience. His first memories always involved the placid canals of Northern Wales, from Llangollen to Froncysyllte, from Pentre to the English border, helping his mother fixing ropes and scrubbing the deck, her long, tawny hair brushing the freshly cleaned wood.

It came from his mom’s side, the nomadic instinct. Remus’ grandparents had moved in Cardiff to find work, but before that, they too had lived in a houseboat in the South, near Crickhowell, which – his grandpa used to brag – took the name from their family, Howell.

When Remus was just a toddler – before that night that had changed everything – they used to live in a cottage on the outskirts of the city, since his mom worked there in a Muggle office, but he had no memory of those years. They had moved to their first houseboat right after Remus’ fifth birthday, he could still remember the bright sun painted on the side, yellow on green. Howell – Hywell in Welsh – meant that, grandpa had told him, ‘The Sun’. It was ironic – Remus had always thought.

Even if his parents had never explicitly admitted it, going back to his mum’s family’s ways had been strictly consequential to the fact that they had to move frequently, so that Remus’ secret wasn’t discovered. Living on a houseboat allowed them to do so, they could disappear easily as soon as rumours started to spread about the sickly, shy boy that avoided other children and yet was always covered in plasters. So, Remus’ childhood was spent on docks and bows and hulls and sterns. He had discovered his magic playing with freshwater nymphs and dealing with grindylows and water dragons and even a kappa one time. As years went by, his father had become his teacher – he had brought Remus to Ollivander in Diagon Alley to buy his wand, when he’d turned eleven, and proceeded in teaching him every day after work at the best of his capacities, in order to make a proper wizard out of him. Tons of wizards and witches were home-schooled – he used to say, cheerful, but unable to look Remus in the eye – and were as good as Hogwarts’ alumni. Sometimes, Remus thought that his dad suffered for his exclusion from the prestigious School of Witchcraft and Wizardry more than he did. It wasn’t that he was happy not to go to Hogwarts like most of his peers, but the thing was… he really didn’t know the difference. His condition had always prevented him from forming long-lasting friendships, his nomadic life had always excluded him from what was common for everyone else. And he had always liked his life – he liked to be able to travel and to see so much and to visit places and study nature and befriend strange creatures. Maybe it was his mom’s restless blood. Maybe it was the fact that he himself was a creature and not the proper wizard his dad wanted him to be. Maybe it was just unconscious resignation.

So, even when his dad had retired, a couple of months after his mom’s death, and moved back on the mainland in an old cottage in Yorkshire, Remus had stayed on the houseboat – it was easier for him and safer and at that point he was so used to it, it would have felt too strange to live elsewhere. It was not like he could find a normal job anyway. So, he travelled, solved local problems – boggarts in old witches’ attics, doxy infestations in pubs, sudden appearances of armies of bundimuns all over the place – and worked on old maps for his own amusement, and for a couple of bucks in research grants from the Ministry. And that was mainly why he had sailed for London, that Autumn, after spending a long rainy summer in the Midlands: he had to check some details in the magical section of the British Library for a job the Ministry had given him. He had travelled South and dropped anchor in Camden and met Sirius.

 

“So, you are a scholar,”

It had been a couple of days since their first encounter and their daily fag around lunchtime was becoming a pleasant routine. Their meetings were mainly quiet, sometime characterised by conspicuously British small talk – weather, qualities of tea, beer price.

“I am not,” Remus smiled. He was sitting beside Sirius on the dock, enjoying too expensive tobacco. “I do some research, it’s mainly a hobby. Sometimes it pays off,”

Sirius nodded, leaning on his palms and enjoying the pale, unusual October sun. It suited him well, Remus thought. Well, there wasn’t much that wouldn’t suit someone with those features, but Sirius looked like a Byronic hero – all dark and mysterious and light skinned – so you didn’t expect him to fit this well under the sunshine. But there was something in the soft light of the Autumn rays that made his skin flush slightly and his eyelashes project a deep shadow under his closed eyes and his hair look less like a raven wing and more like something familiar and velvety, something you could run your hand through in lazy lunchtimes spent smoking and doing small talk. Remus cleared his throat, exiling uneasy thoughts. He nibbled at his lower lip.

“And what do you do?”

Sirius opened one eye, then smirked. “Secret agent,” he answered dryly.

Remus scoffed, bumping his tattered boat shoe against Sirius’ boot.

“It’s true!”

He rolled his eyes.

“I go on missions and everything,” Sirius went on, stubborn, and there was something in his tone that made Remus feel a tingle behind his neck.

“You are twenty,” he pointed out, but recognised his own strange hesitation. He glimpsed at Sirius and noticed he had changed position. He wasn’t relaxed anymore, he was crouched, elbows on his knees and fighting with the zippo to light another fag. There was a shadow on his face, his hair creating a curtain which hid him from the sunshine. When he finally managed to light the cigarette, he huffed a cloud of smoke.

“We do what we have to do,” he mumbled, all humour lost, and Remus didn’t think it was quite odd to be offended over a stupid joke. He thought about a war he was purposefully keeping himself away from since he was five and wondered.

 

*

 

The idea that Sirius could be a wizard badgered Remus for two days – two days in which Sirius didn’t come to the docks and he was left to his own devices, mainly working on the reproduction on parchment of an old mansion in Wiltshire. It had been built around the end of the eleventh century and it had more secrets than one could count. The letter which had been sent to Remus – asking him to produce a map of it – had been delivered by a serious-looking owl coming from the Department of Mysteries with a consistent deposit. Remus had no idea how someone at the Department of Mysteries could know about him or his mapping jobs but had accepted without asking too many questions.

He thought of Sirius, while muttering spells against parchment under his breath, lying on the roof of his houseboat, sinking his teeth in a too sour apple. He wasn’t worried that Muggles could see him, he had casted Muggle repelling spells that same morning, so to be able not to hole up below deck. It was uncharacteristically warm, and he planned to enjoy the sun as much as possible.

So yes, he thought of Sirius. Sirius was undoubtedly an odd name for a Muggle. It was odd even for a wizard, but Remus knew that old families usually gave extravagant names to highlight their status – or because they were complete nutters. He remembered the advertisement of a hair lotion of some kind passing on the wireless: it had been invented by someone called Fleamont Potter. _Fleamont_. The name was so weird that had stuck for some reason in the back of Remus’ mind.

But what were the odds that a wizard could find him in the middle of Muggle London? It wasn’t even a particularly wizard-y neighbourhood. He sighed, turning on his back and looking up at the unusually serene sky. The parchment flapped lazily against his cheek. It was around midday and Sirius was missing their not-scheduled appointment for the third time in a row. Maybe he _was_ a secret agent. A Muggle one, like James Bond, the MI6 Commander whom his mother loved and read about in second hand paperbacks and that had been Remus’… well… spring awakening when he was around fourteen. He groaned, covering his face with a hand.

“What are you doing up there?”

Remus winced and raised up. Sirius was on the dock, tongue between his lips and narrowed eyes so to look at him against the midday sun. Instinctively, Remus slipped his wand up his sleeve, but there was no need. If he hadn’t become suddenly rubbish in Muggle repelling spells that he had been able to cast since he was twelve, Sirius had to be definitely familiar with magic sticks: he had passed through his wards.

“Working,” he answered, plainly, trying not to show the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest.

Sirius was a wizard. Did he know Remus was one too?

_I saw you yesterday, upper on the canal, near Saint John’s Wood._

Did he do something magical when he had berthed near the power station? He tried to avoid magic as much as possible if he wasn’t sure he was alone, but… maybe he was distracted, maybe he wasn’t thinking. And why did the fact that Sirius could know upset him so much? Was it because it had been years since he had exchanged more than a few words with a fellow wizard?

 _Run_. A voice was screaming in his head. _You cannot mingle with other people. They will find out_.

“Can I come up?” Sirius had his hands sunk in his pockets and he was balancing his weight on his heels. A shopping bag was dangling from his wrist.

_Run._

But it had been two days and Remus had thought about Sirius almost constantly. He was so fucked. He gulped.

“Only if you have the expensive ones,”

Sirius shrugged and threw the package towards Remus without a warning. He caught it mid-air and smiled, brushing his thumb against the familiar logo. He didn’t move, just closed the book and fixed the parchment he was working on inside as a mark. Sirius hopped on the gunwale and then on the dock before lifting himself up on the slightly convex top. They lighted the fags with Sirius’ orange zippo. The cypress wand, pressed against Remus’ forearm, burnt like a white-hot stoker.

Remus didn’t ask where Sirius had been in the last few days and Sirius didn’t tell. Instead he eyed the slim package that Sirius had brought with him. “What’s that?”

Sirius lit up and motioned for Remus to check it out. He did and pulled out a brand-new LP. The photo on the cover was black and white and showed a child, no more than eight or nine, with his hands crossed behind his head and huge, expressive eyes staring at the camera. No name of the band nor title of the album.

“Just came out last week,” Sirius said. “U2. They are Irish, first studio album. I saw them play at the Moonlight Club last year,” he was smiling, excitedly.

“What kind of mu– ?”

“Do you have a record player?” Sirius interrupted, clearly buzzing with the will to share his new purchase.

Remus nodded, uncapable of hiding a smile. “I will put it on,” he jumped down the roof, bringing the book with the map inside with him and opened the door of the pit. He retrieved the old record player and carefully placed the record in. He tapped it three times with the tip of his wand and it started playing. Satisfied, Remus went back outside. Sirius was sitting on the edge of the roof, cigarette in hand. He was smiling. As his thumb brushed against the uneven globe at one extremity of his wand, safely tucked back inside his sleeve, Remus tried not to think he seemed to be smiling _knowingly_.

The music was weird, hypnotising in a way Remus wasn’t used to. He loved music – from folk ballads to the new classical experimentalisms, from the psychedelic power of David Bowie to the pub flavour of Dr Feelgood, from the American, jazzy tunes of Dick Walters to Kate Bush. He found out he liked these U2 fellas. He liked the minimal chords of the lead guitar, its arpeggios and ringing harmonics. He liked the drawling, echoing voice of the singer, his peculiar accent. But most of all he liked how Sirius looked listening to it intently, the way he thumped his heel against the doorframe up tempo, the way he narrowed his eyelids and wrinkled his nose, the way the wind played with his dark hair and how he smiled when their eyes met.

_Your eyes make a circle_  
_I see you when I go in there_  
_Your eyes, your eyes, your eyes, your eyes_

 

*

 

The day after, Sirius brought another record, and then another and another and another and soon they did nothing but listen to music and talk about it and laugh about it, sharing fags and opinions and… and soon Remus couldn’t remember a time in his life in which he didn’t lie on the rooftop of his houseboat with Sirius, listening to music and talking about chords and harmonies and keys. Then they moved to books and Remus found out that Sirius had read an incredible quantity of Muggle books for a wizard. Almost as many as he did, but he was half-blood and Sirius clearly wasn’t.

Sirius liked poetry most. Obscure, French authors of the eighteen century, lyric poets from the sixth century before Christ, Elizabethan theatre and even some Romantic, ridiculous stuff like William Blake Remus enjoyed teasing him for.

One day that Sirius didn’t show up at lunchtime, Remus impulsively caught the bus to Charing Cross Road and walked through old second-hand bookshops. His hand stopped on a shabby edition of Emily Brontë’s poems from the Forties. It had a bright red cover and tatty corners and its spine was almost broken in the attempt to mark a particular page. Remus let it open wide and read the underlined verses.

 

_There are two trees in a lonely field,_

_They breathe a spell to me;_

_A dreary thought their dark boughs yield,_

_All waving solemnly._

The following day he gave it to Sirius.

He smiled, an unreadable light in his eyes. “Nice of you to remember my birthday, Remus.”

 

*

 

After that, Sirius disappeared for a week.

Remus worked and tried not to think about it. He failed miserably. Since he had found out that Sirius was a wizard, he had been lingering on his words about being a secret agent and the way he had closed off after Remus had dismissed the information as Sirius just talking bullshit.

There was a war in the wizarding world. Remus read the Daily Prophet and listened to the news on the wireless and tried to ignore it as much as possible. There had been a war hovering for as long as Remus could remember, but it had exploded in the last couple of years. People disappeared, Muggleborns were killed almost daily and the so-called Death Eaters kept growing bolder and bolder, slaughtering Muggles and leaving the eerie shadow of the Dark Mark behind them, not caring about the Statute of Secrecy.

Remus also knew that the Ministry was resisting, that Aurors were deployed like armies and that they were doing their best. It didn’t seem enough, though. He had wondered if the maps the Department of Mystery had commissioned him were going to help them in fighting the Dark Arts. The thought alone had sent an unfamiliar shiver down his spine. The week before, they had sent a letter, trying to arrange a meeting with him, but Remus had refused. He knew he could, that it was in his power to deny them that. He knew he was the only one who could provide them with those kinds of results, he knew his maps were unique. He also knew if they found out what he was… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Voldemort, had been recruiting since Remus was a baby, and the Dark Creatures had been his first interlocutors. If the Ministry found out that he was… if they started to suspect that he could be in some way involved with Voldemort or his henchmen…

But how did Sirius fit in this? Was it a coincidence that they met? Did the Ministry send Sirius to investigate him? But Sirius had never asked him anything about his work or what he was doing in London or any personal question at all. And Sirius didn’t look at all like a Ministry man, honestly. Then why he had seemed so bothered by a half-joke? And why did he disappear so often? And most of all, why did Remus’ gutters clenched at the thought that maybe, this time, he wouldn’t come back?

 

*

 

But Sirius came back. He came back as if he had never left, with a nasty cut over his left eye, the red corner of the Emily Brontë book peeking from his pocket and two tickets for a show in Soho that night.

“First U2 concert in London since the album release,” he said, waving the small pieces of paper. “Care to accompany me?”

 

The Moonlight club was small and crowded and smelled of beer, smoke and sweat. Sirius was pressed against his side, a bottle in his hand and a cigarette coming and going between them in such a practiced way that it looked like they didn’t do much else all day long. Truth was, they had never shared a fag before and Remus tried not to focus too much on the fact that his lips and Sirius’ lips were both touching the same spot over the nicotine-stained filter because that was too poofy even for someone who wanked over Ian Fleming’s books. Emily Brontë’s anthology was stabbing Remus in the hip but he didn’t say a word.

“Were you alone last time?” Remus asked, lips brushing against Sirius’ lobe and his hair in Remus’ face.

“What?” Sirius turned and they were so close Remus could easily count every single one of Sirius’ long eyelashes.

“At the concert, here. Last time. Did you come alone?”

Sirius smiled, but he sounded almost bitter when he spoke. “Yes. None of my friends like this kind of music.”

It was the first time Sirius mentioned friends and Remus found himself surprised. He shouldn’t have been, honestly. People, normal people, people who didn’t live on a houseboat and didn’t move every twenty-eight days and didn’t transform in dangerous monsters every full moon had friends. Even James Bond had Felix Leiter. Alright, these Bond-parallels were getting out of hand. The realisation didn’t prevent him from experiencing a pang of jealousy. He shrugged it off. _Idiot. Of course, Sirius has friends. As he should. Good for him_.

“And what do they like?” Remus handed back the cigarette.

Sirius frowned. “James likes The Beatles,” he pulled a face. “Pete… I guess he is not that much into music. Lily likes sappy stuff,” he rolled his eyes as to say, ‘You know, _women_ ’, which Remus didn’t, but nodded anyway.

James, Peter and Lily. He tried to picture them in his mind, Sirius’ friends. He wondered if they were two wizards and a witch, he wondered if they all went to Hogwarts, if they met there. It was likely. He wondered if they were all the same year, the same house, maybe. He wondered which house Sirius had been at Hogwarts. Remus’ father had been a Ravenclaw and Remus was pretty sure he would have followed in his footsteps if he hadn’t been bitten. He looked at Sirius with the corner of his eye. He imagined him five or six years younger, in school robes, the same mischievous smile on his lips. They were the same age, they would have shared classes, maybe even a dormitory. What would have felt like, to be friends with Sirius, James, Peter and Lily? He suppressed the urge to sigh. It wasn’t like he was ever going to find out. But maybe… maybe it could still be a possibility, maybe he could meet them, maybe they could become friends. He bit his lip forcefully. No, it couldn’t, he couldn’t. It was full moon in less than two weeks and after that he would leave.

“So yeah, I came alone,” Sirius shrugged, as if he didn’t care, when it was obvious that he did.

“Well, not tonight,” Remus felt the urge to point out, looking straight to the minuscule stage, determined not to blush.

He could feel Sirius’ smile as he leaned – was he doing it purposefully or did someone push him? – against him. “No, not tonight,”

They didn’t speak again until the music started, and Remus was thrown inside the messiest, craziest, most over-the-top experience of his life – and that was saying something, since he changed into a werewolf once a month. Everywhere people were pushing and prodding and poking and engulfing him in a mass of limbs and clothes and sweat and heartbeats. He lost Sirius a couple of times in the crowd, then found him again, his smile, his laugh, his arm slung around his shoulders and his breath on his neck as he whispered the words of the songs as though he was telling a secret only Remus was supposed to know.

 

_Sometimes the hero takes me_  
_Sometimes I can't let go_  
_Hello hello_

 

Sirius’ sweaty locks plastered against his cheek, his hand strong against his hipbone, fingers slipping under the fabric of his shirt.

 

 _And I felt like a star_  
_I felt the world could go far_  
_If they listened_  
_To what I said,_

 

His lips pressing against his pulse point, moving, still following the words of the songs. People laughing, drinking, looking at the stage, not noticing them or not caring enough or not giving a fucking shit.

 

_It's cold outside_  
_It gets so hot in here_  
_And the boys and girls collide_  
_To the music in my ear_

 

Suddenly, Sirius’ body pressed against the red bricks, in a dark alley behind the club and the cold November air that sent shivers down Remus’ back, freezing the sweat on his forehead and on the nape of his neck, where Sirius’ hand was grasping at his hair, urging him. Remus breathed in, his nose pressed against the trail of hair on Sirius’ belly, he licked his skin along the hem of his trousers, his hands fighting with buttons and zips and Sirius’ breathy moans in his ears. When he took him in his mouth, on his knees, in a dark alley in Soho, Remus thought, foolishly, _he isn’t whispering lyrics of songs anymore_.

 

 _Twilight_  
_Twilight, lost my way_  
_Twilight, can't find my way_

_In the shadow (shadow) boy meets man_

 

*

 

_Bright morning lights_  
_Wipe the sleep from another day's eye_  
_Turn away from the wall_

Music. Why was there music? Remus blinked twice, then groaned. He closed his eyes again; his head was pounding. He pressed his face in the pillow, hoping that he could suffocate, if he put some effort in the action. It didn’t make any sense; he didn’t even drink that much the night before.

The night before.

Oh, great Merlin.

He jumped up and suddenly regretted it when a pang cut though his brain.

“Mornin’,”

Remus blinked. Sirius was sitting on the counter in his pants, ankles crossed, he was munching on a forkful of eggs. Remus blinked again and looked around. He hadn’t imagined it, a vinyl was turning lazily in his record player, clearly powered with magic.

 _I'll be with you now_  
_I'll be with you now_  
_I'll be with you now_  
_We lie on a cloud_  
_We lie_

“Shit,” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair and falling back against the pillow. He had sex with Sirius. And Sirius had seen his scars, all the scars that travelled on his arms and on his chest and on his legs and everywhere the wolf had managed to get. He had seen the scar of the bite on his hip. Remus swallowed the lump in his throat, looking up at the wooden ceiling. And clearly Sirius knew he was a wizard and that he had never attended Hogwarts. How long till he figured out the rest?

The mattress dipped and the smell of half-burnt eggs tickled Remus’ nose. He glanced aside: Sirius was still munching, cheeks full like a guinea pig.

“Eggs?” he asked, lifting the dish with a hand.

Remus nodded, warily and, totally out of the blue, Sirius stabbed a couple of shreds of scrambled eggs and offered them to him. Remus lifted an eyebrow.

“Open up,” Sirius said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Remus raised on his elbows and grasped Sirius’ hand, guiding the fork inside his mouth. The eggs weren’t bad. They had a burnt aftertaste but at least they weren’t bland.

“Five-star chef,” Remus commented, and Sirius pushed another forkful of eggs in his mouth, half-choking him.

_We lie_  
_Another time, another place_  
_We lie_  
_Your time, your place_

“You are obsessed, you know it, right?” Remus tilted his head towards the record player.

Sirius shrugged. “Which spell did you use to make it work near Muggle stuff?” he asked, as if it was nothing, pointing at the very Muggle stove and at the electric lamps scattered around.

Remus licked his lips and didn’t fail to notice that Sirius’ eyes indulged on the movement. A rush of self-confidence and an unfamiliar sense of flattery ran through him. “I didn’t. My father did. I can find out, though,”

Sirius nodded thoughtfully. “I have been fighting with mine since I moved in my apartment. Until now I managed to make a toaster and a kettle explode,”

Remus leaned in and took a mug full of tea from Sirius’ hand, taking a sip. “Merlin, how much sugar do you put into it? Are you crazy?”

“Tea is supposed to be sugary,”

“Tea is supposed to be sour. And reinvigorating,”

They looked at each other for a few seconds, then burst into laughing at the same time. Remus’ heart was still pounding in his chest, but the clench on his insides was slackening. They shared the tea, even if Remus couldn’t really stand the too sweet flavour. It was sickening.

“For how long have you known?” asked Remus quietly, when only the remains of the leaves and of the ungodly amount of sugar were gathered at the bottom of the mug. He didn’t know if he meant about him being a wizard or about him being a werewolf or both.

“Mmm, Emily Brontë kinda gave you up, mate,” Sirius smirked, and Remus kicked him.

“I mean that I am a wizard.” _And a werewolf._

Sirius hummed, still smiling, nibbling at the hem of the cup. “Since the first moment,” he finally admitted. “I have a way with magic. Pureblood shit,”

So, he _was_ a posh rich Pureblood.

“Sometimes I can… feel it,” he frowned, then shrugged.

Suddenly, Remus felt very exposed for some reason. He quickly glimpsed at his own hip, covered by the blankets, then, he picked his shirt up from the floor and put it on. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. “You didn’t say anything,”

“Neither did you,” Sirius answered, and his inquisitive eyes showed that he knew perfectly well that Remus had been aware that Sirius was magic for a while now. They looked at each other.

“I don’t…” he paused to choose his words carefully. “I am not used to live among wizards,”

It was the truth, and he didn’t want to lie to Sirius more than he already was. He could see a thousand questions crowding behind his grey eyes.

“You don’t have to justify yourself,” Sirius finally said, taking his eyes off him. “I would love not to be used to live among wizards, honestly. And that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

Remus nodded and they stayed silent for a while.

Sirius finished his burnt eggs and picked up his wand from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, carelessly hung to the closest chair. He levitated dish, fork and mug effortlessly, piling them inside the sink. There was a natural grace in his movements, a surety in the way he held his dark-wooden wand. Remus smiled fondly.

Sirius turned towards him and tilted his head on one side, his long hair falling on his left like a waterfall. He nibbled at his lower lip, then, tentatively, rested a hand on Remus’ thigh, still covered by the blankets. Remus’ breath quivered. Was he going to ask about the scars? Was he going to ask why he had never attended Hogwarts?

But Sirius didn’t say anything. He leaned in and looked at him with iron-like, determined eyes and pressed his lips against Remus’. They kissed slowly, almost trying to find out which was the best way to do it.

They had kissed the night before, in an urgent, almost animalistic way – a lot of teeth and tongue and sharp breaths. Remus remembered disapparating together from the dark alley, not caring, not stopping to think, and he remembered falling into the bed, half-clothed, panting and trying to get to as much skin as possible as fast as possible. But that morning they kissed with patience, and intent, and purpose, even if their breath was awful and they hadn’t showered since the day before and were basically a whole mess of gross-ness. They kissed and they fucked, and Remus thought _if there are questions, let them never come_.

 

_You feel in me_  
_Anything redeeming_  
_Any worthwhile feeling_  
_Is love like a tightrope_  
_Hanging from the ceiling_

 

*

 

“So, why do you live on a houseboat?”

Remus slapped away Sirius’ foot, which was poking his temple with his big toe. They were lying on Remus’ bed, upside down, sheets tangled around their bodies in a crazy mess and Remus was desperately trying to read a book about that godforsaken mansion he was mapping with increased difficulty.

“My mum’s family used to,” he answered, chewing the tip of his dull quill. “They are from Wales,” he added, as if that explained everything.

“From Wales, mh?” Sirius answered. “I co-ould ne-ever te-ell, I co-ould,” he went on, with a ridiculous made up accent.

“That was a horrible impression,” Remus retorted, stinging his toe with the quill.

Sirius screeched and tried to disentangle himself but ended up even more bound in linens and fell on the floor with a loud thump. Remus chuckled, going back to his book. It was easy, familiar in a certain way, sharing the space with Sirius. He came and went as he pleased, sometimes he stayed for the night, some other times he walked away after dinner. It happened that Remus found him already inside the houseboat, busy making awful attempts at dinner or lying on the bed listening to music, when he came back from the library or from the grocery store. He tried not to get used to it. He really tried. He kept repeating himself it wasn’t going to last. Only ten days and he would sail away, go up north, wherever, as far as possible.

Sirius got up and threw himself back on the bed.

“It wasn’t! I was offered a place in a cabaret theatre once!”

Remus raised his eyebrows.

“Okay, it was a standing ovation after a particularly good imitation of Professor McGonagall, but it’s almost the same,”

Remus smiled and hesitated, before asking. “You went to Hogwarts, didn’t you?”

Sirius looked at him quizzically. “Yes,” he said. “And you didn’t,”

It wasn’t a question.

Remus shook his head slowly.

“Why?”

Sirius was looking at him in earnest with those inquisitive eyes of his and Remus felt his heartbeat accelerate. “My parents believed I would have done better home-schooled,” he answered. _It’s not a lie, you are not lying to him_. “I was a sickish child,” he added for good measure. Again, not a lie.

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. “It’s a pity,” he said in the end. “We would have met long before,”

Remus lifted a corner of his mouth. “Maybe you wouldn’t have liked me at eleven,”

Sirius dismissed the sentence with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t like Slytherins and my family, which is pretty much the same thing, so you would have been okay,”

Remus had been wondering about Sirius’ family name, he had even indulged on a heavy tome in the library – _Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_ – but in the end he had fought the urge; he didn’t want to have the upper hand on Sirius.

“Which house were you in?” Remus asked.

“Gryffindor, obviously,” Sirius replied, unable – and unwilling – to mask his pride.

Remus snickered. It was certainly fitting.

“Do you even think about it? How would have been if you attended Hogwarts?” Sirius asked, curiously, cautiously, slowly massaging Remus’ calf absent-mindedly.

 “I do,” he answered, truthfully. “I have been thinking about it more since…” he flushed, looking away and didn’t finish the sentence. That was a stupid thing to say. Sirius’ fingers stilled. He leaned in and kissed his knee, right over a nasty jagged scar. Remus’ breath hitched. Sirius pushed his thigh open and his lips followed a trail of scars and scratches and marks, up towards his hip and his groin and after that Remus didn’t manage to think anymore.

 

*

 

Sirius was a terrible cook.

He tried, bless his soul, but he was an awful excuse of a cook. Remus wasn’t less dreadful. He just accepted it and went by mostly on canned beans and raw groceries. Not very wolf-like. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed unable to recognise defeat. He kept trying and trying and trying and every meal was worse. When Remus came back from a particularly fruitless visit to the British Library, that day, Sirius was busy making a vile version of a curry and Remus wondered why he couldn’t just buy food instead of messing up the kitchen. Then, he went bright red for his own mundane thoughts.

“What are you doing?” he asked, fighting against a sigh.

Sirius turned around and smiled; he had a smudge of paprika on his cheek. Remus felt the corners of his mouth curl up instinctively.

“Hey!” he said, cheerfully. “I was waiting for you. Look at this,” for a moment, Remus thought he was referring to the wretched curry but a second after Sirius was pressing a piece of battered paper into his hand. Remus looked at it: it was a wizard photograph. Sirius was in the picture and he was riding a motorbike. A flying motorbike. With an extremely satisfied-looking baby with bright green eyes and a mini-helmet pressed against his chest. Remus gaped.

“James took the picture,” Sirius said, clearly proud of his friend’s photographic skills. “From his broomstick,”

It looked extremely dangerous. And endearing.

“Who is the boy?” asked Remus, uncapable of hiding a soft smile.

“Harry, my godson,” Sirius answered, delighted, and Remus felt his heart beat faster at Sirius’ clear affection. “James and Lily’s son,”

Remus blinked, surprised. If he was not mistaken, James and Lily were around the same age as Sirius and himself. He thought about fathering a child and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. But there was the war and the disappearances and the constant death count and suddenly it seemed pretty natural that people were skipping steps. Reasonable, even. People want to be happy. People want happy endings. Grab what you can while you are still alive.

“You are a reckless godfather,”

Sirius’ smile widened. “I know, right?” he went back to his curry, dipping the spoon into the blotchy sauce and stirring it.

 

_I need more than an ordinary grind_

_Everybody ought to love his job_

_And live his life and keep his pride_

_Imperturbably happy with the one you love_

_With an exciting future_

_On the fat of the land_

 

Remus glanced at the record player: that was a new one. He walked to the mass of Sirius’ LPs that were half scattered on the small sofa, half piled up right behind the deck. He picked the empty cover of the one that was playing. Iggy Pop. Remus smiled. There was something about Sirius and Iggy Pop, an affinity of some kind that Remus had felt since he had heard Lust for Life for the first time.

“You should meet them,” said Sirius suddenly and Remus instinctively cringed. His eyes ran to the calendar that hovered like an omen near the fridge. Five days to the full moon. He took a deep breath, ready to say something, anything, to avoid the stiff silence that had followed Sirius’ light-hearted proposal.

“Relax, Remus, I haven’t asked your hand in marriage,” he joked, but there was a kind of tension in his words.

Remus turned around and lifted a corner of his mouth in a pitiful attempt of a smile. “No, of course. I…”

He ought to tell him, Sirius deserved it. He couldn’t just sail away when he wasn’t there. _I’m leaving. I’m leaving in five days_.

But the loud tapping against the window prevented him from opening his mouth. Sirius, who was closer to the handle, opened it, and a scruffy owl came in, extending its leg towards Remus. He took the letter, recognising the thin, enchanted parchment. It was from the Department of Mysteries. He gulped and nodded towards the owl, which flew away in a rustling of feathers. Remus gave Sirius a lopsided smile and lifted the letter as to say, ‘I have to get this’. Sirius shrugged and went back to his curry, while Remus climbed out of the cockpit.

 

_I need more than an ordinary grind_

_And the more I think the more I need_

_My life is going all right up ‘til now_

_Even so it’s not enough for me and_

_I need more_

 

*

 

“So, this is what you do.”

Remus winced and a huge stain of ink fell on the parchment. “Fuck,” he grasped his wand and performed a quick movement, then turned around. “Merlin, Sirius, you gave me a heart attack,”

But Sirius wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the small figurines moving on the map, he was looking at the words that formed the walls, at the little scrolls that appeared near secret passages every time one of the tiny silhouettes walked past them. He looked astonished.

“Remus,” he said and laughed breathless.

And suddenly Remus remembered about the war, and who he was working for, and that this was Department of Mystery’s work. He thought about Sirius and the fact that he didn’t know anything about him, he didn’t know which side he was on, he didn’t know why he was there and if they had met by chance, he didn’t know if Voldemort had sent him or the Ministry or who the fuck knows? He had let him in his house alone for days. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have let his guard down?

He drew his wand and pointed it against Sirius, who frowned and stopped laughing.

“What are you doing?” Sirius took a step back but didn’t lift his hands in surrender, he didn’t reach for his wand either.

“Who do you work for?” his voice was stone cold.

Sirius looked at him. “Nobody,” he answered, flatly.

Remus made his intentions clearer and the tip of his wand brushed Sirius’ jacket. He could smell the rain on him and the cold November air.

“Why are you really here? Who sent you? Was it Voldemort?”

Remus noticed that Sirius didn’t flinch at the name, but a flash of anger blazed in his eyes.

“I am a member of the Order of the Phoenix,” Sirius said slowly. “But nobody sent me here,” there was a bitterness in his tone, as though he felt betrayed. “I saw you near Saint John’s Wood that day. I was at James’, my best mate, he has a town house there, sometimes we use it as a safe house for meetings. Then I saw you here, from afar. But it was a coincidence. I came closer because I felt you were magic, and we are around the same age and I was curious why I had never seen you at Hogwarts. That’s it,” he finished dryly. “That’s the story. Nobody sent me,”

Remus lowered his wand slowly. He could be lying, but he had been looking at him right in the eye and he had never blinked once and his irises were so clear they looked like the steely waters up north, near his hometown. Sirius let go a shaky breath and when Remus met his eyes again, he looked older. So much older. As though telling him all that had drained him. Broken him.

“What is the Order of the Phoenix?” Remus asked, unable to look at him directly.

“It’s a secret society founded by Albus Dumbledore. We fight Voldemort underground. Me, my friends, other people too,” Sirius was struggling against something. “I’m sorry, I cannot tell you everything, I… there is a Fidelius Charm on most of the things.”

 _And you shouldn’t_. Remus thought, _I could be anyone. I could be on Voldemort’s side. You would believe I am if you knew what I am. And how the hell didn’t you figure it out yet?_

He sighed, implicitly giving in, threw his wand on the messy desk and leaned against the kitchen counter, taking deep breaths. He didn’t know why he felt so shaken up. Sirius could have killed him a thousand times. He could have stolen his maps and his secrets every time he had stepped foot in his houseboat.

He heard Sirius walk to the desk and listened to the familiar rustling of papers. “This is invaluable, Remus,” he whispered, almost reverently.

“Yeah,” Remus licked his lips, stubbornly staring at the sink. “Tell that to the Ministry pay cheque,”

“You are doing this for the Ministry?” Sirius sounded appalled. Maybe even a bit jealous. What? Couldn’t the Order of the Phoenix compete?

Remus laughed at the irony. “I certainly am not doing it for the Malfoys,” he paused and turned back, looking at Sirius, who anticipated his question.

“Not a Malfoy,” he grinned dangerously. He still looked grim, different from mere hours before. “A Black,”

_Sirius Black._

_I would love not to be used to live among wizards, honestly. And that’s why I didn’t say anything._

“Nice to meet you, Sirius Black,” Remus said, a weak, bitter smile on his lips. “I am afraid my surname isn’t even half that interesting,”

Sirius shrugged and looked at him, but his body language showed that he wanted to go back to examine the map badly. “Humour me,”

“It’s Lupin,” he said, quickly, trying to ignore the voice in his head that tried to stop him from revealing too much. Sirius had told him his name. It was only fair. Now they were even.

“Enchanté, Remus Lupin,” Sirius smiled, and for a split second, Remus had the careless boy back. He waited to see if there was any kind of recognition, but his father’s was such an old, secondary case. Model Ministry employee suddenly mysteriously resign, after Fenrir Greyback eludes surveillance.

But Sirius was back on the map, completely mesmerised. He touched the little people with the tips of his fingers, then traced the scribbled walls with the end of his wand. He didn’t ask. Sirius never asked. He had that kind of arrogance that only came from money. He whispered words, trying to figure out incantations, trying to understand which was the secret of the pages. Remus crossed his arms and looked at him for long minutes. He had no idea where they stood. He didn’t know what Sirius thought of him, nor what would happen in the immediate future. He eyed his own wand, near the desk lamp. He had been stupid to discard it, now it was closer to Sirius than to himself.

“This is ground-breaking,” Sirius finally said, looking up to him. “Who asked you to do this? Who is your contact at the Ministry?”

Remus tensed. “I don’t know. And even if I did, I couldn’t tell you,”

Sirius nodded, thoughtfully, then looked back at the map. Remus stared at his wand. He wondered if Sirius would try and stop him if he moved towards it. Before he could do anything, Sirius picked it up by its end and handed it to Remus, without a word. Remus circled the handle with his fingers.

“Why do you trust me?” he asked warily.

Sirius tapped on Lucius Malfoy’s scroll with his index finger. “I don’t,” he answered. “Or I shouldn’t. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that I am smitten with you. You could easily be working for the Malfoys, as far as I know.”

Remus blushed at the careless way in which Sirius admitted it. “I don’t work for the Malfoys,” he said again and threw the last parchment from the Department of Mysteries in front of Sirius. He dismissed it without even looking at it and went back to his fascinated examination.

“How do you do it?” Sirius asked, dragging one of the books closer, reading quickly the underlined passages.

“Well, if I told you I would be jobless, wouldn’t I?” Remus sighed, fiddling with his wand. He was pretty positive that Sirius would not try to kill him, at least not tonight. He turned his back on him and put on the kettle. He didn’t know what to think. All he had was Sirius’ word. For everything. He had never wanted this, he had never wanted to get involved in this kind of game. The stupid war had taken enough from him even before it started. He was glad he could help – from the backlines, doing what he could do – but he didn’t… It had all been a mistake. Talking to Sirius, getting to know him, falling in that comfortable relationship, having a friend, something more. He didn’t know if he believed him. He waited for the water to boil in silence. Was that a kind of Mata Hari game? Was Sirius supposed to _seduce_ him or something to find out what he was up to? What he was capable to do? Did he really work for Albus Dumbledore? How could he be certain…? He jumped up when the kettle started to whistle and he poured two cups, filling one with too much sugar, absent-mindedly, hands shaking. Sirius didn’t have the Dark Mark, he knew that much, he didn’t even have the usual behaviour of an imperioed person. When Remus handed him the mug, he accepted it as if they weren’t on thin ice. He took a sip and hummed, satisfied. Remus looked at his forearms, the sleeves of his jumper folded to his elbows, showing only fair skin.

“I’m not a Death Eater, Remus,” Sirius sing-sang.

“How would I know?”

“I could give old Dumbs a call, if it made you feel better,”

Remus frowned at the thought of Albus Dumbledore, whom he had seen only on Chocolate Frogs, sipping too-sugary tea in his houseboat. It was ridiculous. He sighed. Finally, Sirius lifted his eyes from the stupid map and seemed to consider something, then walked to Remus, still holding his cup. They looked at each other. The intensity in Sirius gaze was mesmerising.

“Join the Order of the Phoenix,”

Remus choked on his cup of tea, spitting hot liquid all around him.

Sirius blinked repeatedly, briefly glancing at his newly stained shirt. Remus didn’t apologise. “Excuse me?” he asked, in a high-pitched tone.

“You are…” Sirius opened his arms and laughed incredulously, in the same way he had when he had seen the map for the first time. “Remus,” he said, breathless. “I have never met someone who could do something like that. You are…” Remus had never seen someone so in awe. He felt his neck burning. “That is extremely powerful magic. If we had that…”

“I’m already helping the Ministry,” Remus said quickly, fighting not to look at Sirius in the eye. He couldn’t bear to see him like that.

_I am smitten with you._

“But think what you could do in the Order!” Sirius raised his hands in the air, he grabbed his own locks, pacing up and down; then stopped. “Think what you could do with Dumbledore,” his eyes were burning, he seemed feverish, and Remus _couldn’t look at him_.

He poured his tea down the drain, then abandoned the mug in the sink. His hands were still shaking. Sirius was blabbering about what they could aim for with a map like that, how they could track Death Eaters, how they could ambush Voldemort himself. He leaned against the counter. Sirius was jumping all over the place, burning with a fire that Remus had never seen before. It wasn’t the same rebel boy he had met almost a month before, the one who listened to U2 and dragged him to live shows, but he wasn’t the dark, grim character he had been when Remus had threatened him, half an hour before. A strange, restless energy was running through him. Remus wondered if it was desperation. Remus wondered if they were losing the war.

“I can’t. I am sorry, Sirius,” he cut him short, he wasn’t listening to him anyway. He walked to the desk and started tidying up: he could feel Sirius’ eyes piercing through his back.

“We have a spy in the Order,” Sirius tone was deadly sombre now, all amazement lost. “With your ability we could catch them,”

Remus felt the paper crumble beneath his fingers. He slackened his hold and smoothed the parchment, piling it aside. He let out a shaky breath, then moved to the books, closing them one after the other and placing them back on the shelves.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” Remus said painfully. “I still can’t help you, I am sorry. I am truly sorry. I am already doing what I can,”

“Don’t be fucking selfish, Remus!”

He turned around, Sirius was breathing heavily, like after a marathon: he was losing his temper. He still looked in a haze and he was fidgeting with the pocket of his jacket, fingers brushing against the shiny paper of a photograph.

“People are dying. Innocent people, children,” his hand sunk in the pocket, crushing the picture. “My godson…” he paused, “He is in grave danger,” he blinked rapidly. “My family is in grave danger,”

And Remus somehow knew he wasn’t referring to the Blacks. He was talking about the boy in the photo, and about Peter and James and Lily and all the people he had mentioned in his long monologues that always ended up in half-awkward silences. He understood the subtext. And he also knew how humiliating was for Sirius to ask even without asking directly. _Do it for me._

“I am already working for the Ministry,” he repeated. “I am pretty sure Dumbledore has men in the Ministry, he probably knows about this. The Prophet says the Minister writes to Dumbledore every other day. If he was interested in this kind of work he would have already asked,” he could feel the weakness of his own motivations, and he knew he was just making Sirius angrier.

“Screw the Ministry!” Sirius opened his arms. “Remus, we are one to ten against the Death Eaters. If you teach me,” he pointed to the desk. “If you teach us this, we can do things they cannot even imagine,”

“I cannot teach you. It’s a long process. It’s not something you could deal with,” he regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth.

Sirius eyes became impenetrable steel. “What is that supposed to mean?” he growled, teeth gritted.

Remus breathed in, nostrils quivering. “You are reckless. And impulsive. What I do takes time and patience and focus. It’s not like throwing yourself into a fight or in spy jobs or whatever you do for the Order of the Phoenix,”

“You don’t know a thing about what I do for the Order,” Sirius’ voice was cold and sharp. “I am asking you to help _me_.”

Remus knew this was coming. He licked his lips and shook his head. It took all of his willpower. “I can’t,” his voice broke on the last syllable. _I am a monster. I can’t_.

Sirius looked shattered.

“I am leaving,” he added, quietly. “In a few days I am leaving, and I am not coming back,”

The silence that fell was unbearable.

Then Sirius laughed, a broken, manic laugh. It lasted so long Remus thought he’d lost his mind. He tried calling his name quietly, but he didn’t react. When he raised a hand to touch him, Sirius pointed his wand at him, fingers surprisingly firm on the handle. He was still shaking from half-sobs and chuckles. “Let me guess,” he finally said, dead calm. “You are leaving on the twenty-first?”

Remus turned white. He reached for his wand too, but Sirius shook his head to show him he was going to act quicker than him if he ever tried. He was smiling, an icy smile that didn’t reach his soulless eyes. “You think I didn’t know?” he asked, with chilling sweetness. “I saw the bite,” he added. “I saw the scars. I knew since that night after the concert,”

Remus’ heart was pounding in his chest. He wanted to scream, he wanted to ask him why he didn’t say anything and why he had stuck around anyway and why he had kept sleeping with him and why he hadn’t killed him or reported him.

_I am smitten with you._

It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible that he had stayed even knowing. It wasn’t possible that Sirius felt something for him despite knowing what he was.

“So nice of you to respect my silence,”

Denying it was useless. And he had always pledged he would tell the truth if someone found out. There was no use in telling the umpteenth lie. Sirius knew and he had a wand pointed at him and was most probably an admirable fighter.

Sirius lost part of his eerie Black coldness at Remus’ sarcasm. “Cut the crap. I don’t give a bloody fuck, Remus,”

Remus gaped. “Excuse me?”

“You are a werewolf, so what?” There was a wild fierceness in Sirius words, as if he was defying someone Remus couldn’t see. Hearing him recognise what he was made Remus suffocate. “I am a Black, I can assure you that’s worse,”

Remus felt the blood boil in his veins. “You don’t understand,” he said flatly. “You don’t know how it is, you don’t lose control once a month, you don’t change into a monster,”

“Enough with the self-pity, Lupin,” he snapped and red sparks precipitated from the tip of his wand. Remus winced and Sirius’ expression softened, and he added, more conciliatory, almost sweetly. “It is not your fault,” he lowered his wand. “As much as it’s not my fault for being born with this name,”

Remus’ brain was short-circuiting. He could not believe Sirius’ words. He could not believe he was sincere, he really didn’t care what Remus was, he didn’t mind that he changed every full moon, that he broke every single bone in his body, that he shredded himself to pieces to avoid hurting other humans, that he howled so much his throat hurt for days and his voice came back just after long hours of attentive treatment, that he had to tend to his own wounds and to perform long, complicated enchantments on himself to be able to barely stand.

“It’s not our fault,” Sirius’ expression was so intense Remus felt his heart break. “But we do something about it. We fight it. You are not just a werewolf,” his eyes were back at their pale grey, almost silvery colour. “You listen to good music and you spend all of your time reading. You drink awfully sour tea and you fold your socks. You are the kindest person I’ve ever met. And you are an extraordinary wizard,” he articulated the last word as if he wanted to underline a particularly important concept. “Come fight with me. The world is not divided in good people and Death Eaters. We have both light and darkness inside of us. We have to accept it and choose which team we want to play on,”

Remus tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but he found himself unable to. He leaned again against the counter, trying to make sense of the feelings that were battling inside of him. He blinked several times, trying to even his breathing. It was harder than he thought. He could feel Sirius’ eyes on him, the burning warmth of supposedly cold irises.

“Good speech,” he mumbled after a while.

Sirius barked a strangled laugh.

“Thank you,” he paused. “It’s my amazing charisma,” he joked, but there was still a stiff tension between them.

Remus sighed and massaged his eyelids with his fingertips. It was too much all together.

“Not everyone agrees with you, you know that?” he said slowly.

Sirius shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m usually right.”

Remus looked at him sharply. “I am not joking, Sirius. People are scared of werewolves and rightly so, especially since Voldemort gave them charte blanche. If anyone were to know…”

Sirius looked at him right in the eye. “Nobody has to know. I won’t tell. Not even Dumbledore,” he said, passionately. Remus could see why the Sorting Hat had put him in Gryffindor: loyal and reckless to stupidity. He looked at him: his cheeks were stained in red and his eyes were bright and luminous, his long hair framed his aristocratic features with an effortless grace. He was beautiful and crazy, and Remus knew he was going to have his heart broken.

“If I help you,”

Sirius beamed, and Remus reiterated.

“ _If_ I help you, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone. Not even your friends, not even James.”

Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but Remus cut him.

“This is my secret, Sirius. I don’t want anyone to know. I never wanted anyone to know. _If_ I help you, this is my condition. I will tell if and when I will feel comfortable doing so. To the members of the Order of the Phoenix or even to Dumbledore.”

Remus’ heart was beating fast in his chest, he had no idea why he was actually thinking about it. He should just leave, like every other time. It was too dangerous, if someone found out… But then he looked at Sirius, his grey eyes and his music and his courage and his pride. He thought that he had torn it to pieces, thrown it to the dogs, just to have a chance to help his family, to keep fighting, to go against his destiny.

When Sirius nodded, Remus knew a part of him had already made the decision.

“I need some time,” Remus added, quietly. He couldn’t think clearly if Sirius was there.

Sirius nodded again. He seemed to fight against the urge to say something, to react in some way. He fidgeted again with the photograph, then licked his lips. “I will go,” he answered, looking around, as if undecided on either gathering his things or not. He shrugged in the end and went for the door, his long fingers lingering on the handle. He turned back at the last moment.

“Where will you spend the full moon?” he asked in the end, and it wasn’t at all what Remus was expecting.

He blinked twice. “I have… safe houses, too. You could call them so.” _Why do you care?_

Sirius shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Will you be okay?” he asked, gently.

Remus felt his chest fill with warmth. “I can take care of myself,”

A corner of Sirius’ lips raised. “I know you can, big bad wolf. It doesn’t mean you should,” he leaned against the doorframe with a shoulder, hand still on the shiny brass.

If Sirius didn’t leave immediately, Remus was pretty sure he was going to burst into tears and crumble down. He didn’t know what to think, how to react. No one except his parents had ever known his secret and… they were kind of supposed to care for him, in a way. But Sirius… Sirius knew, he had known for days, and he had stayed. He had not pressured him into telling him, he wasn’t disgusted, he wasn’t scared. He cared for Remus but didn’t care for the wolf and everything in his life had always been capsized, like a boat after a storm, and the wolf had always come first. But not this time. Not with Sirius. Sirius’ feelings were all directed towards Remus and how Remus was and what Remus was able to do. Sirius cared for _Remus_.

When Remus didn’t answer, Sirius stepped back from the window. “Here, let me show you something,” he drew his wand and Remus tensed, but he waved it and murmured. “Expecto Patronum,”

A huge silvery dog appeared in the middle of the small space. It was massive: big as a bear, with thick fur and pointy ears. Remus thought it was oddly fitting. It wagged its tail and pawed towards Remus, before nuzzling his hand with his incorporeal snout, and looked up at him. Then, it spoke in Sirius’ voice. “Send me your Patronus with a message after the full moon and I will get to you,” and it exploded in a shower of silver sparkles.

Remus’ eyes widened, impressed.

“It’s a system Dumbledore invented,” Sirius explained. “Only the members of the Order communicate in this way. It’s just a matter of concentration. When you cast the Patronus you think intensely about the words you want it to pronounce. It’s part of your mind, your soul,”

Remus tried not to smile. It was very sweet that Sirius took for granted his ability to cast such a complicated charm. He raised his arm and focussed on a good memory: him and Sirius, lazily listening to music, hot tea in their hands, the peaceful quietness that he had experienced… At the same time, a sentence formed in his head. “Expecto Patronum,” he articulated clearly.

The majestic silvery wolf leaped instantly towards Sirius, still standing near the door, but he didn’t move, he didn’t even flinch. He smiled and ran a hand through its intangible fur, as though petting him. Remus could see in his eyes the profound admiration for the beast, the way in which he respected it. He was not afraid. Remus voice came amplified and a little scratchy, like a radio not very well tuned. “Bold of-f you t-to th-think I c-can cast a Patronus,”

Sirius eyes glittered. He smirked. “Fortune favours the bold,” he said cryptically; then, he left.

 

*

 

_One year later_

There was a photograph, floating in the water. It showed a group of people. Some of them were young, some of them were middle-aged, some of them were old. Some of them were blond, some of them had jet black hair, a woman had flaming red locks framing a lovely face. Some of them were tall, some other short, one of them was two times any other man. They were all different, but they were all smiling, fierce, brave smiles, they all had bright eyes and hope in their heart. The picture was floating in the water, on the Regent’s canal, in the slipstream of an old houseboat with a faded sun painted on the side. The boat was sailing north-west, towards the Grand Union.

It was the beginning of November, 1981.

Remus had always known he was going to have his heart broken.

 

_No one, no one is blinder_

_Than he who will not see_

_No one, no one is blinder_

_Than me_

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own anything, only foolish ideas.
> 
> The songs and the poem quoted in the story are, in order:  
> I will follow - U2  
> There are two trees in a lonely field - Emily Bronte  
> Sometimes you can't make it on your own - U2  
> The Ocean - U2  
> 11 O'clock Tick Tock - U2  
> Twilight - U2  
> City of Blinding Lights - U2  
> Shadows and tall trees - U2  
> I need more - Iggy Pop  
> I threw a brick through a window - U2


End file.
